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Feedback on new farm maps


Aaron

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Seeing as the update maps for the farm tileset have now been out in the wild for some time, I would like to ask for some feedback on the experiences people have had playing on them.

I am currently in the process of working through all the other maps in the game, which is an enormous job, so any feedback you guys can give me now about glaring omissions or problems would be very helpful.

In particular (and keep in the mind this has only been applied to FARM MAPS thus far):

Size - are the sizes of the maps fitting for the scale of battles you find yourself fighting at each tier of UFO? The sizes of the maps are as follows: Small maps are 60x60 (and they can spawn with light scouts, scout and corvettes), medium maps are 60x80 (corvettes, landing ships and cruisers) and large maps are 40x100 (cruisers, carriers and battleships). The large maps are that odd shape because much of the action in those maps is intended to happen inside the UFO, with only a (relatively) minor skirmish happening outside.

Randomisation - I have tried in all the maps to define a set of at least 2, sometimes 3, positions that the UFOs and dropships can spawn at. The hope is that even playing on the same map repeatedly should not be the same experience if both the player and the UFO start in different relative positions from each other. This means some spawn configurations might encourage quick missions, while some longer. How do you guys find this? Is it effective?

Submaps - as with randomisation above, I have also made a determination that each building submap should have at least 2 and more often 3 randomly chosen configurations, with as significant a difference between each as possible. This is quite a bit of work, even with the farm buildings which are fairly simple (I am working on industrial buildings now and they are complicated and so take even longer) but again I hope the effect of never being able to predict what buildings might be like, even if you have seen the map before, makes it worth it.

Realism - I feel that some of my new farm maps are probably less "realistic" looking than the older revisions of them, but as a result they are probably also more interesting tactical spaces. How do people feel about this? I get the impression we perhaps worry about realism in the maps too much, and once you are actually playing the game you don't notice these inconsistencies in how things are placed in the game vs. how you might expect in the real world.

So basically, any and all feedback on the farm maps greatly appreciated. If you want to have your say about maps now is the time because, as I said, I am just about to start working my way through all the other sets and it will be much more likely for me to incorporate feedback as I go, rather than once they are all finished.

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Disclaimer: I have yet to get a proper impression of Large Farm maps.

I find the scales of the outdoor battles to be a little small for most crash sites (not true for Terror sites or Base defense!), but that could be due to the "bug" where the weaker aliens retreat instead of engaging something heavily armored, or due to being balanced around the Shrike being Landing Ship tech. I don't think the map size needs all that much adjusting, I'd rather just move the Shrike tech ahead a bit and add a bunch of redshirt aliens with a nice new AI.

Would it be difficult to have the game randomly transpose the size and props of a map, so the approach isn't always on the same axis? Or at least have the two orientations for the UFOs submaps - Cruisers in particular feel a bit tedious to approach, but that might be alleviated somewhat if UFO hulls were destructible.

With randomized spawns and building submaps, it now takes longer to realize what map I'm on and even longer to triangulate where the Alien Craft might be. This encourages more exploration, which is nice. I hope it carries over to more than just buildings - a different plant being farmed, differently painted fences, the roads sometimes being dirt instead of pavement, etc.

I haven't noticed any realism change compared to previously, but it bears mentioning that there could be more buildings at a farm than just haylofts.

By the way, are you mapping with future changes in mind?

For example, I was under the impression that aliens would start utilizing buildings more and even climb stairs at some point to compensate for the engine-enforced flat landscape, which I'm really looking forward to. If so, it hopefully has the side-benefit of accommodating jetpack armors.

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I am a big fan of the improvements.

A couple of months ago I felt map variety to be the biggest issue with the game. For farms at least it has improved a lot. Randomness is not only good, it's critical. I do not in the slightest mind the occasional unrealistic element, good tactical possibilities and randomness are far more important to me. So excellent job overall on the new farms.

I would, once aliens start using stairs, like to see the occasional 2-floor or 3-floor barn throw into the mix, similar to how it worked in the original game. Currently, the game is still essentially flat as aliens don't use stairs and your own LOS is wonky when firing from high ground.

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I just started playing this weekend and I have to say I am very impressed with the maps. I was initially worried when I heard that there was a map generator, but these maps are well laid out and nicely detailed and drawn. I have been surprised when I recognize maps and I still feel a little unsure as to where things will be placed; in other words I am liking the random starting positions, it does add vigor to the maps.

I did notice an issue with some desert light scout maps; some civilians were running through stairways in houses asif they were ghosts. Also, I noticed myself getting some repeat starting positions to an extent.

I am not worried about "realism" in terms of item placement. I have not noticed an issue and even if I thought some piece of farm equipment was "out of place," I would think that the farmer left it in an odd spot and would imagine a story based around that, rather than break game immersion and think that the map developer incorrectly placed it there.

In sum, you are doing a good job.

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I've not played any of the new maps, so maybe I shouldn't even comment. ;)

All the same....

I really appreciate the effort you've taken in making the maps as variable as possible.

I second the sentiments expressed above and recommend utilizing multi-level buildings. Support for multi-level buildings (AI, LOS, firing, grenades, etc) needs to be good, though.

Also, make the maps as unrealistic as you want. Realism isn't important when compared to a good gameplay experience. When it's a Xenopedia entry, realism matters to an extent because it's just text and a picture; no flashy amazing gameplay to go along with it. When it's in the ground combat, though, an exhilarating map will more than make up an oddly placed fence, or a wonky looking set of hedgerows.

After all, UFO:EU had randomly generated maps, and thus very little realism oftentimes. I didn't ever get the feeling that it looked too unrealistic; I was too busy fighting aliens and trying to survive to notice/care about anything out of the ordinary.

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I've not got up to the larger ship sizes in my v19 game, but the farm maps seem good to me. My only question about farm maps is this: is it safe to place xenonaut airships on props and alien/civ/friendly spawn points? UFOs being placed on them leads to bad things, in my experience, but if it's perfectly safe to do this with xeno ships, that makes it a lot easier to place multiple start points. Or have you actively changed it so that an airplane entity will overwrite everything that it's placed on? If you have, that's going to make it a lot easier to make maps. I've been making individual carrier/bship maps because of their huge yet different sizes leading to large empty zones otherwise. If I can now place props down that'll speed things up a whole bunch.

If you don't mind civs/friendlies being iced with no chance of survival on UFO maps, that's fine. But if you do, you might want to ensure that civs/friendlies spawn out of sight of aliens, or at least behind some sort of cover. This is farm_small_barn at the moment (for those who don't know, red/yellow/blue crosses are possible alien/civ/friendly spawn points, respectively).

jeILu7O.png

It's possible for aliens to spawn right next to a civ. They're going to die, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Here's a quick and dirty example of me trying to give the player time to get there:

yLr5Qn8.png

It's far from perfect, but I've taken the alien out of the barn, and moved/put props in the line of fire, so hopefully the civs will last until turn 2.

As far as realistic maps go, I've not heard anyone complain so far. I'm certainly not going to be the one to start, because it suits me just fine, thankyouverymuch.

Nope, if there are any updates after the 2nd of this month (September) then my version isn't getting them. And I'm assuming there are.

[sigh] If I reinstall will I lose saves? Just to know going in.

I'd check to see whether you have the maps first...? Browse to Xenonauts\assets\maps\farm\. If the xml files inside have names like "farm_small_barn" and "farm_small_fields", you're golden. If you see files like "farm_lightscout1" or "farm_small1", you have the outdated official maps.

I don't see why you wouldn't have them if you have v19 stable.

Edited by Ol' Stinky
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The new maps are in v19 stable, they are "new" in that most of the other maps have been put together piecemeal over the last year or so. Also remember only the farm maps have been re-done so far.

@Stinky: In theory the dropship being present should "overwrite" any other spawn points, but I've not given it a thorough enough test yet I must admit - if it doesn't work like that though then it's a bug which you can assume will be fixed.

Also, I did try to bias the locations of the spawns a little bit to separate aliens and civs, but the Farm maps generally only have 2-3 civilians on them anyway. The industrial maps will be more heavily populated, so I'll try putting the civilians in safer areas.

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@Stinky: In theory the dropship being present should "overwrite" any other spawn points, but I've not given it a thorough enough test yet I must admit - if it doesn't work like that though then it's a bug which you can assume will be fixed.

Also, I did try to bias the locations of the spawns a little bit to separate aliens and civs, but the Farm maps generally only have 2-3 civilians on them anyway. The industrial maps will be more heavily populated, so I'll try putting the civilians in safer areas.

I haven't seen any problems with the airships in the ground battles so far in v19 - I bring it up because it definately used to be a problem back when I started playing around with the map maker. (18.4, I think.) It's a good change/fix, this makes it a lot more practical to have multiple airship entities on one map; I only wish I'd poked around one of the new farm maps sooner!

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With no intended attempt to derail this thread, I have uninstalled and reinstalled the game, from steam, I had validated the copy to gain access to the beta before anyway and can select it from the drop-down menu, but nothing updates. The launcher, even reinstalled, says I'm running the V19 stable hotfix from the 2nd of September.

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With no intended attempt to derail this thread, I have uninstalled and reinstalled the game, from steam, I had validated the copy to gain access to the beta before anyway and can select it from the drop-down menu, but nothing updates. The launcher, even reinstalled, says I'm running the V19 stable hotfix from the 2nd of September.

but did you do this?

ClickThis_SteamValidations.jpg

steams a bit qurky.... this usually works. forced to check for updated files as well as missing. installation just gathers files needed to install doesn't always pick uptodate.... thats why sometimes when you install a game via steam it updates too... doesn't happen often but eh.

it could also just be that you do have it and you just haven't noticed it?

Seeing as the update maps for the farm tileset have now been out in the wild for some time

ClickThis_SteamValidations.jpg

ClickThis_SteamValidations.jpg.bf937bb72

Edited by Falidell
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if thats the case then i'm missing the updates too. i too am missing some research topics they go ####. but for the sake of this thread i do have the updated farms levels so my guess is you do too. and i do like the idea of the multiple placements of the UFO/Dropship spawn locations haven't been able to play them yet working on the desert levels.

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